Shakedown Cruise - Pinery Provincil Park, Ontario, Northville, Michigan and Chain O'Lakes State Park in Indiana (May 11-16, 2019)

In the spring of 1982 I was living in Gstaad, Switzerland with a seasonal winter job as a waitress.  Gstaad is surrounded by mountains.  I was done for the winter and planned to bicycle to Spain to meet up with relatives from Germany who were on vacation near Barcelona. After a week with them I'd head back to France and meet up with my best friend in Switzerland, a French national, Dominique to bike around the Loire Valley.  The morning of my departure I was up and ready to go early, several friends seeing me off in the parking lot of  the Sportmotel Rutti. I jumped on the bike and started to pedal.  The bike wouldn't move. I'd packed and repacked the panier bags many times while getting ready but never tried to bike with them on the bike. It was all way too heavy.  After laughing for a while at this silly oversight, I repacked, getting rid of a lot including a sleeping bag and headed off early afternoon.

A shakedown trip on the bike would have been a good idea. 

Although we had taken our rig out for a weekend, that wasn't really enough. It needed a longer trip, not too far from home in case things went really badly. It also gave us a chance to repack if things weren't in the right place, figure out if we forgot anything and lighten the load if we realized we didn't need something.

We were part of our online RV community called RVillage (pronounced R Village) and they were having their first RV Rally mid-May in Elkhart, Indiana. We didn't know anyone going and had never been to any rally before but the distance was right so we signed up.

The first stop was to visit a friend I hadn't seen in years who lived just outside Detroit and we had arranged to be there Saturday evening May 12th. Sitting in the motor-home Friday morning all packed up and ready to go Saturday we looked at each other and said "What are we waiting for? We may as well cut some time off the trip tomorrow and start out now.". Off we went to the Pinery Provincial Park, a couple of hours away.  It was fun to stop at a park we are so familiar with the first night.  On Saturday we headed to Northville, Michigan where Lisa (ex-Travel CUTS coworker) and Chris Laycoe let us park our beast in their driveway. They had arranged to use their neighbours driveway for themselves. We stayed with them, hang out with their kids Ally and Josh, going for ice cream, sleeping in their driveway (by choice), Saturday and Sunday. Tanner had a great time with their two dogs as well. Thank you for the warm welcome and hospitality Lisa and Chris. Pictures missing at time of publication 😏

Scott relaxing in the rented kayak

Moving west we stayed at Chain O' Lakes State Park in Indiana. What a great place. It was still very quiet this early in the camping season but we were in t-shirt and shorts and rented a couple of sit upon kayaks to paddle around the closest lake.  It's called Chain O'Lakes as there are actually a chain of lakes you can paddle through. We'll go back again and spend more time at this wonderful park.

Tanner loved the park too

Peaceful early in the season

Previous campers left a little rock campground

Campground Notes: We looked around a bit for a level site to fit our rig. This early on many sites were still wet and too soft for us to park on. Our electric only site (they do not offer water/sewer) was $23. USD per night (would have been $30 Thursday-Sunday $33 on holiday weekends). Canoe / single kayak rentals were $5. /hr $20. /day. A double kayak was $8./hr or $32./day. The day rate applies Mon-Fri. No rate available for Sat-Sun. They also rent bikes and cabins,  hunting and fishing licenses, have day use access as well as offering Electric and boondocking sites (non-electric). Top sites for us in the same rig would be #346 or # 365. We would definitely love to go back for a longer stay.